Sunday, October 22, 2006

The Gensler Family

So, the entire Gensler family has visited me in Japan. The last of the Genslers, Marc, visited me a couple of weeks ago. The first couple of days, we biked around town, ate great food and just took it easy. Sunday, October 8th was the big Shinzaike festival, my local community festival. About 18 people from my building went to the festival.

First picture of the day, it was 8am and we were barely awake. We met at our local community shrine. In case you are wondering, we drank sake at about 8:30am. A bit late in the day, but we were happy to toast the festival with the community.Julian and Marc in their hapi coats sporting our community color (pinku).
Mac is Shirasagi Residence photographer and "safety man" (check out the hat the community gave him to wear).
At the shrine, the men lifted the yatai and jostled it around. We also watched the lion dance.
Then, we marched around our community yelling "yoyasai" for several hours. The yatai was on a cart with wheels. There's no translation for "yoyasai", but I think it's a cheer of encouragement, not sure. Some things just can't be explained. At all times, there are two kids in the yatai drumming. Here's a picture with a couple of the drummers.
I am yelling in the megaphone "yoyasai". It reminded me of my days as a coxswain.
I got to carry a big pom pom and cheerlead. Go Shinzaike!
After marching for a 2-3 hours we went to our local park and met up with three other communities' yatais. We had an amazing lunch. We also watched the lion dance again and some kids preform another type of dance. Julian was somewhere between two yatais, trying to keep from getting his body smashed.
Shirasagi representin'. At every event I like to get pictures of me Mac and Julian 2. We were throwin down our hand residence hand signals.
We met back up later that evening at our neighborhood community center for food, drinks and more fun!
It was another great festival. I'm glad I was able to share the experience with Julian and Marc.

2 comments:

Gwynne Sullivan said...

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

I LOVE the idea of yelling something that you don't quite know the meaning of and doing it with enthusiasm. This blog makes me so happy and smiley and laughy. Woo hoo!

John Suitcase said...

Sounds like you guys are still having fun, I wish I were there too!

So, how many festivals have you attended so far?